Extracts obtained from plant resources contain a lot of mixtures, in which various pharmacologically active substances are included. As exemplified by the analgesic aspirin, which was obtained from willow, and the anticancer drug taxol, which was obtained from the yew tree, plant extracts are a rich repository of pharmacologically active substances. At present, the most important two procedures in discovering pharmacologically active substances from plant extracts are separation of components and activity test. In order to analyze a plant extract, which is a very complex mixture, the individual components are separated through fractionation and separation to reduce the degree of mixing. Then, the fractions resulting from each fractionation step are subjected to activity test to select the fraction with the highest activity, which is further subjected to fractionation and activity test. This procedure is repeated to discover the effective components.
Since the fractions of the extract are still mixtures and the overall activity of the fraction mixture, not the activity of the individual components, is tested through the activity test, it is impossible to acquire information about specific components until the components are completely separated through the fractionation procedure. Thus, the desired substance can be obtained only after the time- and labor-consuming efforts of fractionation, separation and purification.
Thus, there is a need for reducing the time and efforts required for discovering desired substances by allowing the extraction of information about individual components in a mixture.